Problem Solver: Aid mix-up keeps teen in hospital

Byron Moore, a patient at University of Chicago Hospital in Chicago is visited on Tuesday, July 17, 2012, by his aunt, Neomie McCarthy. (Terrence Antonio James, Chicago Tribune)

The television in hospital Room 506 was tuned to an afternoon talk show, but 18-year-old Byron Moore paid no attention to it.

He barely moved on a chair in the corner of the room, his hospital gown taut around his 220-pound frame. Visitors came and went, but his laserlike focus was on a laptop computer as he watched his favorite music videos over and over and over again.

On Tuesday, like most days, he remained in the chair for hours at a time, except for occasional short walks with staff members around the University of Chicago Medical Center campus.

It had been that way for months, since the severely autistic teen hit a teacher April 27 at King College Prep High School.

Concerned there was an imbalance in Byron's medications, the school called an ambulance, which brought him to the hospital.

At the time, everyone involved thought his stay would be brief. After all, Byron was not physically ill.

But 12 weeks later he was still there, whiling away the time as hospital staff and his family attempted to navigate a thicket of red tape that prevented Byron from leaving.

Since the day he arrived, he has required round-the-clock care, including a "sitter" of sorts whose job was to ensure he did not become violent or wander off.

"He's cooped up in a room because the state can't get its act together," said his aunt, Neomie McCarthy, as she visited him Tuesday. "He deserves to have a life outside of here, just like everybody else. It's very important for him to get up out of here."

But for that to happen, the state had to approve Byron's Medicaid funding, which would allow the teenager to move to a nearby residential care facility. That process, mired in miscommunication and confusion, proved painfully slow.

"This young man has fallen through the cracks," Tom Tynan, director of social work and spiritual care at the U. of C. Medical Center, said Tuesday. "We're not really designed to provide housing and residential care. We're an acute-care hospital. We're trying anything we can to help him."

When his mother, a drug addict, gave birth to Byron, doctors at Michael Reese Hospital thought he wouldn't survive. His mother fled shortly afterward.

"She left him there," said Byron's grandmother, Alverta Moore. "She never went back to get him."

His mother did, however, pass her drug addiction on to the newborn. Developmentally disabled and struggling to survive, Byron spent the first seven months at care facilities. Shortly before he turned 8 months old, Moore adopted him through the state's Department of Children and Family Services.

"I did what I had to do," Moore said.

As Byron got older, his care grew more difficult. Byron has developed into a sweet but burly young man. Although kind and funny — nicknamed Pooh by his grandmother for his resemblance to Winnie the Pooh — he sometimes does not understand basic rules of behavior. His family says he's a beautiful singer, but he has limited verbal skills and sometimes speaks in short phrases that even his family cannot understand.

When he disagrees with people he can become violent, and Moore, 85, cannot always handle him. On several occasions, he has hit her.

When Byron arrived at U. of C. Medical Center, doctors quickly determined he could not be released on his own or be safely returned to his grandmother.

Hospital staff found a residential care facility to take Byron. But then the facility determined that Byron's Medicaid had lapsed. Without Medicaid benefits — thus ensuring payment — the facility would not accept him.

McCarthy, who along with Moore has court-appointed guardianship of Byron, said Byron's Medicaid card shows coverage until October, and hospital staff said that his Medicaid coverage shows up as "active" in their computer system.

But Medicaid told both the hospital and the family that because he was in the Department of Children and Family Services system, his coverage lapsed when he turned 18 on April 9.

When McCarthy learned of the lapse last month, she immediately filled out the proper applications, she said, but it became bogged down in the system.

Frustrated at the lack of progress and worried Byron's spot at the resident care facility would be lost if funding wasn't approved quickly, McCarthy emailedWhat's Your Problem?on July 13.

"U. of C. has been helpful. They allow him to stay there," McCarthy said. "Because he's not physically ill, we're very, very appreciative of the care they've given him."

Still, she said, a hospital is not the best place for Byron. Since April 27, he has not received any schooling or set foot outside the hospital campus.

The Problem Solver called Januari Smith, a spokeswoman for the state's Department of Human Services.

Within days, McCarthy began receiving calls from state employees, helping her push Byron's Medicaid application through the process.